Within the framework of a series of workshops on different aspects of historical temporalities planned by the Arbeitskreis Geschichte + Theorie, Anna Karla, Jörn Eiben and I are organizing a workshop in November 2018 on the event in history.

Focusing on its specific temporality, we seek to develop a new theoretical understanding of this central historical category.

In January of 2014, a group of colleagues from the Freiburg history department and I founded the ‘Reading Workshop History and Theory’ (Lektürewerkstatt Geschichte und Theorie). Its aim is to bring together scholars and students from all disciplines of the humanities with an interest in the theoretical basis of their respective fields.

Starting point was the observation that although the necessity to coordinate theoretical reflection and empirical research is often stressed, in practice the links between the two aspects are often neglected. The reading workshop confronts this weakness by providing an informal forum for rigorous discussion of the theoretical foundations of research in the humanities.

Two years onward, we have been discussing a wide variety of themes, such as:

Postcolonialism

Walter Benjamin

Niklas Luhmann

Spatial turn

Carl Schmitt

Actor-Network-Theory

Paul Ricœur

Max Weber

Michel Foucault

… and many others

Since this is a self-organized group and not an official teaching course, we are flexible with regard to themes, dates as well as to the form of discussion.

Anyone in the Freiburg area – from the first semester student up to the PhD and beyond – interested in joining is cordially invited to send an email to: geschichteundtheorie@gmail.com.